Company has Mexican restaurant at asset-light goal of nearly 80% franchised
Jack in the Box Inc. opened 44 restaurants in its fiscal 2024 and refranchised 47 Del Taco restaurants, the company said Wednesday.
The San Diego, Calif.-based company, which released earnings for the fourth quarter ended Sept. 29, said it planned to have eight Jack in the Box restaurants open in Chicago during the coming 2025 year and will enter Florida later in the year. The company said Del Taco is nearly 80% franchised at this point.
“Our growth plan — several years in the making — is beginning to take shape and show results,” Darin Harris, Jack in the Box CEO, said in an earnings call with analysts.
“We battled through a tough environment that brought top-line headwinds to the industry,” Harris said, “and we are adapting to this new environment to accelerate sales throughout 2025 and beyond.”
Jack in the Box opened 30 restaurants in fiscal 2024, the highest number of openings since 2012, and completed 60 restaurant site approvals, the company said.
Jack in the Box signed franchise development agreement during the first quarter to enter Detroit with five new restaurants and it now has 10 total restaurant commitments in Michigan, the company said.
The company has also focused on improving its digital capabilities, Harris said.
“Our investments in modernizing restaurant technology and advancing our digital capabilities are now contributing toward the ambition objectives we shared last January, including becoming a 20% digital business by 2027,” he said. “We will have nearly 550 Jack in the Box restaurants on our new POS {system] by the end of calendar 2025, all of which include flip kiosk capabilities.”
For the fourth quarter ended Sept. 29, Jack in the Box reported net income of $21.9 million, or $1.12 a share, compared to $21.9 million, or $1.08 share, in the same period a year ago. Revenues dlipped to $349.3 million, compared to $372.5 million is the same period a year ago.
Same-store sales for Jack in the Box restaurants were down 2.1% in the quarter, and same-store sales for Del Taco units were down 3.95 in the period.
As of Sept. 29, Jack in the Box had 2,191 restaurants across 22 states, and Del Taco had 594 restaurants across 17 states.
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